Free Ploesti: The Great Ground-Air Battle of 1 August 1943 by James Dugan, Carroll Stewart Page B

Flavelle, from Caldwell, New Jersey. Flavelle didn't open

his mouth much, except when men gathered to harmonize -- then his fine

baritone sounded deep into the desert night. He had interrupted forestry

studies at the University of Oregon to join the Air Force because he

hated fascism. Flavelle proposed to lead three ships on a twilight raid

on Messina to avoid the morning mists that had foiled Appold. Compton

and Ent approved.
     
     
Flavelle took his wave-skimming B-24's into the ferroconcrete train sheds

and "rammed the bombs right down their throats." The planes leaped overtop

into a formation of forty unarmed Junkers 52 transports flying toward them

at tree level. Jerome DuFour, Flavelle's wingman, said, "We decided to fly

straight ahead and the hell with them. With all our guns opened up,

we ploughed right into them. They all scattered, except one who came

at us head-on. We broke him up in the air, and he crashed." Now General

Ent had another successful low-level strike to consider.
     
     
In this brightening atmosphere the Circus, Eight Balls and Sky Scorpions

arrived from England, completing the five heavy bomb groups assigned

to Tidal Wave. Never before had there been gathered a more experienced

group of American airmen. The force commanders were, with one exception,

hardened survivors of the air war. The commander of the mission-leading

Liberandos, K.K. Compton, was a product of the early campaign in the west

under Timberlake, who placed him with Rickenbacker and Lindberg as "a

great instinctive pilot." The second bomb force was to be led by Addison

Baker, Timberlake's heir at the helm of the Traveling Circus. Baker's two

deputies were Colonel George Brown, who had led many high battle boxes

over western Europe, and an equally experienced ex-economics professor

named Ramsay Potts, set to lead a small echelon of his own. Next to

Potts in the battle front would be the largest force, the Pyramiders,

the old established desert firm, led by the salty Killer Kane. Beside

Kane on the simultaneous sweep there would be an efficient group of green

ships, the Eight Balls, led by a man of destiny, Leon Johnson, also an

alumnus of the East Anglian Liberator school. His deputy and leader of

another separate striking force was a cool, tight formation keeper, James

Posey. The remaining force, the inexperienced Sky Scorpions, were led by

Jack Wood, who maintained high technique and discipline among his crews.
     
     
When Colonel Wood arrived in Benghazi, he came up against the reality of

the desert war. He and his officers had to pitch their own tents. Major

Philip Ardery looked enviously at the dwellings of the pioneers. A tent

near him had a marble floor two feet deep and high sandbag revetments

above the ground, which made it cooler and kept out German strafing.
     
     
Jacob Smart flew to Benghazi carrying the invisible seals of the Joint

Chiefs of Staff. He discovered that the low-level concept was by no

means sold to those who so far knew about it -- the top brass and

group leaders. Smart jeeped around the forty miles of dust, visiting

the colonels and arguing for his conception. He let them know that

he himself was going to fly the mission. He had secretly picked the

co-pilot's seat with an old reliable squadron leader of the Circus,

Major Kenneth 0. ("Kayo") Dessert, who was to lead the second wave over

Target White Two.
     
     
One of the Circus pilots who had come to the desert was Walter Stewart,

a big, ebullient blond from Utah. If you did not know this fact you could

read it in very large type on the side of his machine: Utah Man. Before

the war Stewart had been a Mormon missionary in England. When he returned

there in uniform he resumed his rapport with English crowds by speaking

at war bond rallies. One day, after selling a fortune in British bonds at

King's Lynn, Norfolk, he was introduced to two members of the audience

who had asked to meet him. Stewart shook hands